"Europe-based supply chains built on their strong performance in 2017," said Stan Aronow, research vice president at Gartner. "Ten European firms made it into the global top 25, one more than 2016 and five more than 2015."

In the European top 15, Unilever, Inditex and H&M took the top three spots, in that order (see Table 1.) There were three new entrants this year: No. 13 Adidas, No. 14 Roche and No. 15 Siemens. They replaced three companies exiting since the 2016 ranking: No. 13 British American Tobacco, No. 14 Ahold Delhaize and No. 15 Bayer.

"The companies in the European top 15 demonstrated strong growth of 6.8 percent, which is more than double the average growth of the global top 25," said Mr. Aronow. "Moreover, European companies scored above average in corporate social responsibility and opinion score performance."

In line with the Global Supply Chain Top 25, the top trends that emerged across leading European supply chains were digital experimentation, speed to adaptability and a focus on sustainability.

"The bedrock of these successful trends are core foundational themes — common to all leading supply chain organizations — that have created a culture of excellence and relentless drive to continuously improve," said Mr. Aronow.

These common themes include:

Global scale, local responsiveness — Regardless of industry, these companies all have hundreds of sites, thousands of suppliers, thousands of SKUs and operate in dozens of countries. They set aggressive global targets, but allow flexibility in how they are achieved in local markets. Most have a few critical global-enabling processes around strategy, quality, planning, analytics, visibility and technology, and a combination of global and local manufacturing and distribution.

Multiple models through segmentation — Whether to address new product categories, emerging markets, the shift to multichannel or enhanced customer service, leaders apply segmentation to create a portfolio of standard models to meet different end-user needs and handle complexity effectively and efficiently. This allows them to be both cost efficient and leaders in customer service.

Collaboration — Based on visibility enabled by technology, these companies work collaboratively across whatever network is required to achieve the goal. Internally, that translates to a focus on making sales and operations planning a true decision-making forum across functions within the supply chain, with internal business partners, suppliers and customers. More broadly, leaders also focus efforts on strategic suppliers and partner with customers, competitors, governments and interest groups, as required.

Investors in talent and technology — High-performing supply chain operations widely acknowledge that technology facilitates execution. What these companies also recognize is that talented individuals create, drive and develop world-class supply chains. Many of these supply chains focus considerable effort on university relationships to hire great talent and take advantage of rotational programs to develop the leaders of the future.

Culture of excellence and masters of change — For these companies, transformation is not a one-time project; it is a way of life. In addition to strong leanSix Sigma continuous improvement, and quality and standardization initiatives that maintain a focus on operational excellence, they have dedicated resources to dream, pilot and drive disruptive change across the organization. They are truly bimodal in how they create and improve capabilities.

To gain valuable external perspective on supply chain, visit SCM World, a cross-industry community of the world's leading supply chain practitioners. Now a fundamental pillar of Gartner's supply chain services, the community orchestrates and curates the most innovative strategies, insight, expertise and knowledge from across the SCM World community.

Gartner analysts are providing additional analysis and information on supply chain trends at the Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference, which is taking place September 20-21 2017 in London. You can follow news and updates from the events on Twitter using #GartnerSCC.

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